Hello there!

For this beginner tutorial we will be exploring the many uses of the “Position” tool.

The Position tool is great way to get around that pesky magnetic timeline.  When placing clips into the project timeline, FCPX will automatically shuffle everything out of the way by default.  For example – If you have three clips and you want to place a clip in-between them, all you have to do with the default arrow (Selection tool) is drag it between them and they will get out of the way.  This is opposite to those using Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro 7 are used to.  There default is much more like the Position tool. Continue reading…

Have you noticed that the Ken Burns effect is seriously flawed in FCP 10.1?  It has been since Apple skipped to version X.  Don’t get me wrong, the Ken Burns effect has held a lot of promise.  It gives you the illusion of super-fast and complete control over animating photos.  It is something that I’ve used a lot at work and I loved the speed that it gave me.  But it was always flawed because it would always start at a dead stop, ease into motion, and then slowly ease back into a dead stop.  There was no way to create a linear move- one were it did not ramp up but would immediately be a full speed.  Ramping up looks nice, but when you have a series of photos, it looks best to dissolve between already moving photos and it looks best if the photos are moving at a linear speed.  FCP 10.1 finally, FINALLY, gave us an option to make the Ken Burns effect linear, just after two years of waiting.  But I discovered a new flaw in the linear Ken Burns effect.  If you have a video clip and you try to dissolve into the clip and put a linear Ken Burns on it, the motion of the effect will start happening half-way through the dissolve!  So the clip will start at a dead stop then suddenly start moving while it’s dissolving in. Continue reading…